The Rough Guide to Berlin (Travel Guide eBook)

Description

Thoroughly researched and updated, the eleventh edition of The Rough Guide to Berlin is the ultimate travel guide to one of Europe's most dynamic, restless and ever-changing cities. Blending stunning photography with full-colour maps and more listings and information than ever before, The Rough Guide to Berlin offers practical advice on all the best things to see and do in Berlin - from iconic sights such as the Reichstag, Brandenburg Gate and the world-class museums of Museum Island to expanded coverage of the latest places to go in up-and-coming neighbourhoods like Neukölln and Wedding. With comprehensive, reliable reviews of all the best hotels, bars, clubs, shops, galleries and restaurants for all budgets, plus itineraries and Top 5s and a wealth of background information, The Rough Guide to Berlin is all you need - whether planning or on the ground - to make the most of your trip.

Sujets

• Germany

Informations

• Publié par: Apa Publications
• Date de parution: 01 mars 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 5
• EAN13: 9780241307632
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 52 Mo

Extrait

CONTENTS HOW TO USE INTRODUCTION What to see When to go Things not to miss Itineraries BASICS Getting there Arrival City transport The media Festivals Travel essentials THE CITY 1. Unter den Linden and around 2. Museum Island and around 3. Alexanderplatz and around 4. The Spandauer Vorstadt 5. Potsdamer Platz and Tiergarten 6. City West and Schöneberg 7. Kreuzberg-Friedrichshain, Neukölln and around 8. Prenzlauer Berg and around 9. The eastern suburbs 10. The western suburbs 11. Out of the city LISTINGS 12. Accommodation 13. Eating 14. Drinking and nightlife 15. The arts 16. Shopping 17. Sports and outdoor activities 18. LGBT Berlin 19. Kids’ Berlin CONTEXTS History Books Film Architecture Language CITY PLAN MAPS AND SMALL PRINT Introduction Introduction Cover Table of Contents
HOW TO USE THIS ROUGH GUIDE EBOOK
This Rough Guide is one of a new generation of informative and easy-to-use travel-guide ebooks that guarantees you make the most of your trip. An essential tool for pre-trip planning, it also makes a great travel companion when you re on the road.
From the table of contents , you can click straight to the main sections of the ebook. Start with the Introduction , which gives you a flavour of Berlin, with details of what to see, what not to miss, itineraries and more – everything you need to get started. This is followed by Basics , with pre-departure tips and practical information, such as entry requirements and transport details. The City chapters are your comprehensive neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood guide to Berlin, with full-colour maps featuring all the sights and recommended hotels, restaurants, cafés, bars, clubs and venues. The Listings chapters tell you where to eat, sleep, drink, shop and party, from beer gardens to techno clubs. Finally, Contexts fills you in on history, books, film and architecture and provides a handy Language section.
Detailed area maps feature in the guide chapters and are also listed in the dedicated map section , accessible from the table of contents. Depending on your hardware, you can double-tap on the maps to see larger-scale versions, or select different scales. There are also thumbnails below more detailed maps – in these cases, you can opt to zoom left/top or zoom right/bottom or view the full map. The screen-lock function on your device is recommended when viewing enlarged maps. Make sure you have the latest software updates, too.
Throughout the guide, we ve flagged up our favourite places – a perfectly sited hotel, an atmospheric café, a special restaurant – with the author pick icon . You can select your own favourites and create a personalized itinerary by bookmarking the sights, venues and activities that are of interest, giving you the quickest possible access to everything you ll need for your time away.
INTRODUCTION TO BERLIN
With its notoriously hedonistic nightlife, tumultuous history and easy-going, cosmopolitan vibe, Berlin is indisputably one of Europe’s most compelling cities. Add a generous feeling of physical space (thanks to a rare combination of large-scale urban planning and a relatively low population of just 3.6 million), a cutting-edge cultural scene and the emergence of a buzzy start-up culture, and it’s easy to see why so many people are not just visiting the freewheeling German capital but moving here in droves.


Indeed, Berlin’s transformation since the fall of its notoriously divisive Wall has been nothing short of extraordinary, and its 1989 rebirth is key to understanding the city’s youthful vitality. The first wave of post- Wende (“turning-point”) settlers – artists, squatters, musicians, DJs – set the edgy, alternative tone that still drives the city, despite encroaching gentrification and commercialization. Cheaper than London, liberal, multicultural and still very much at the heart of the European Union, Berlin today has grown into one of Europe’s prime destinations for hip young things and entrepreneurial types alike.
  Beneath the future-oriented, upbeat veneer, however, remain the poignant scars of the turbulent twentieth century, and its onslaught of war, partition and totalitarianism. A wealth of museums and memorials confront the past unflinchingly, commemorating and meticulously documenting the methodologies and crimes of successive authoritarian regimes, though a certain stream of nostalgia still lingers for the lighter aspects of the GDR, which remains vivid in the memories of many older Berliners.
  This traumatic history has also taken its toll on the city visually. Not only was much of Berlin, once the grand capital of imperial Prussia, reduced to rubble at the end of World War II but many ugly and uninspired new buildings were thrown up afterwards. Following a second spate of frenetic construction in the immediate wake of the Wende , when a host of high-profile architects were commissioned to create an aesthetic suitable for the born-again capital, the city now presents a somewhat chaotic architectural jigsaw . It might not always be easy on the eye, but the urban cityscape seems to suit Berlin’s slightly dishevelled nature, with an unconventional charm all its own – and the overall effect is softened by the many parks, gardens and playgrounds that help make it such an appealing place to live.
  Perhaps more than anywhere else in Europe, Berlin is a city – seemingly in a perpetual state of transformation – that repays repeated visits. Whether you’re drawn by its world-class museums, endlessly absorbing history or frenetic, 24-hour nightlife, visit now and you’ll be hooked forever.

OFFBEAT BERLIN

Tempelhofer Feld Go cycling, skating or kite landboarding in Europe’s biggest park, a former Nazi airport.

Street art Learn to graffiti with Alternative Berlin, then find your own bit of wall to practise on.

Badeschiff Cool off on a summer’s day with a dip in the Badeschiff, a pool made from a converted barge, bobbing above the inky River Spree.

Go-karting Career around the streets in a go-kart.

Mauerpark Rummage for vintage clothes and the occasional item of GDR memorabilia at this Sunday flea market.

FROM TOP SCHLOSS CHARLOTTENBURG; HAMBURGER BAHNHOF; OLYMPIASTADION

What to see
The central Mitte district, cut off from the West for almost thirty years during the years of division, is Berlin’s main sightseeing and shopping hub. Most visitors begin their exploration on the city’s premier boulevard Unter den Linden , starting at the most famous landmark, the Brandenburger Tor , then moving over to the adjacent seat of Germany’s parliament, the Reichstag , perhaps the greatest symbol of the nation’s reunification. At its eastern end Unter den Linden is lined by stately Neoclassical buildings and terminates on the shores of Museum Island , home to some of Berlin’s leading museums, but its natural extension on the other side of the island is Karl-Liebknecht-Strasse , which leads to a distinctively GDR-era part of the city around Alexanderplatz , one of Berlin’s principal commercial and transport hubs. Northwest from here, the Spandauer Vorstadt was once the heart of the city’s Jewish community, and has some fascinating reminders of those days, though today it’s best known for the restaurants, bars, boutiques and nightlife around the Hackescher Markt.
  Back at the Brandenburger Tor, a walk south along the edge of the sprawling Tiergarten park – past a trio of memorials to victims of Nazi crimes – takes you to the modern Potsdamer Platz , a bustling entertainment quarter that stands on what was once a barren field straddling the death-strip of the Berlin Wall. Huddled beside Potsdamer Platz is the Kulturforum , an agglomeration of cultural institutions that includes several high-profile art museums. Also fringing the park are Berlin’s diplomatic and government quarters, where you’ll find some of the city’s most innovative post- Wende architecture, including the formidable Hauptbahnhof . The western end of the Tiergarten is given over to a zoo, which also gives its name to the main transport hub at this end of town. This is the gateway to City West , the old centre of West Berlin, and best known for its shopping boulevards, particularly the upmarket Kurfürstendamm .
   Schöneberg , Kreuzberg and Neukölln , the three key residential districts immediately south of the centre, are home – along with Friedrichshain to the east – to much of Berlin’s most vibrant nightlife. The relatively smart Schöneberg is the city’s LGBT centre, while Kreuzberg and Friedrichshain, which straddle opposite sides of the Spree, have maintained a grungy and edgy ambience despite the inevitable onward march of gentrification.
  Friedrichshain also offers some unusual architectural leftovers from the Eastern Bloc of the 1950s, while to the north yuppified Prenzlauer Berg is one of the few places in which the atmosphere of prewar Berlin has been preserved – complete with cobbled streets and ornate facades. North of Prenzlauer Berg is the sleepy, attractive district of Pankow , while to the west lies ever up and coming Wedding , with its large immigrant population and pockets of underground culture and nightlife.
  Berlin’s eastern suburbs are typified by a sprawl of prewar tenements punctuated by high-rise developments and heavy industry, though the lakes, woodland and small towns and villages dotted around Köpenick offer a bucolic break from the city. The leafy western suburbs are even more renowned for their woodland (the